President Napolitano is inviting faculty, staff and other members of the UC community to provide feedback on task force recommendations for new retirement benefits that affect future UC employees. Feedback from the UC community will help inform the proposal the president is expected to bring to the UC Board of Regents in March.

The proposal will only affect new employees hired on or after July 1, 2016.

Executive Vice President/Chief Operating Officer, Rachael Nava, who chaired the task force, will hold two webinars in February to discuss the recommendations with and field questions from interested faculty and staff:

In addition to the webinars, members of the UC community also are invited to submit comments online until Feb. 16.

UC is developing new retirement benefits options for future employees as a result of the 2015 budget agreement between UC and state leaders. Under the agreement, Gov. Brown and the Legislature will provide UC with $436 million over several years to help pay down UC’s unfunded pension liability in exchange for UC implementing a cap on the defined benefit (pension) portion of UC’s retirement benefits, mirroring the cap on pension benefits for state employees under the 2013 California Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act (PEPRA).

Key priorities for UC in designing a new set of retirement benefits include:

Ensuring UC’s long-term fiscal health that, among other things, maintains the financial stability of the UC Retirement Plan (UCRP) for current and future employees and allows for regular salary/merit increases for faculty and staff;

Maintaining the competitiveness of overall compensation for UC faculty and staff;

Facilitating shared responsibility between UC and employees for individual retirement readiness, and providing programs and other support that help employees prepare for retirement.